Woman Walk The Line
by sdbubbles
Summary: "It's just the way of a woman when she goes out to walk the line." - 'Woman Walk The Line' by Trisha Yearwood. Serena Campbell walks the line she wants to cross, but how can she cross it when she is doesn't let the man on the other side see her for everything she is?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is just something I've come up with. It's probably utter crap. Sorry!**

**Sarah x**

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It was five minutes past nine when Serena stumbled onto AAU, tripping over her bag as she held it open with one handle, desperately searching for her phone with the sinking feeling that she had left it by her bed. She didn't even know why Guy kept putting her on AAU; she was better off on Keller, where she could be a surgeon rather than a line manager of this utter mess on the ground floor.

She had slept in this morning, having suffered her most restless and traumatic night of sleep in a very long time. The last time she could remember visions so vivid, she had been pregnant with Eleanor. This time, though, pregnant was the one thing she most definitely was not. She sighed when she walked straight into a set of blue scrubs and the man in them, Ric Griffin. Just what she needed on a Friday morning, late and very much sleep deprived.

"Just don't," she warned him before he could even open his mouth to speak to her.

He raised his hands, a look of amused surprise gracing his mellow features. "I was only going to say good morning," he defended himself. He took her bag from her and studied her face, and it took all her self-discipline not to squirm under his scrutiny. "Are you alright?" he asked her, and she found herself torn between irritation and gratitude for his concern.

"Yes," she replied, though she wasn't entirely sure it was true; she hadn't been so utterly tired in years, simply because she'd had a night filled with dreams she would have preferred to forget completely. "I just overslept."

"That's not like you," he commented. "Everything OK?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" she deflected. She didn't really want to admit she had a rough night; as much as she knew she was only human, she liked Ric to see her as something more than that, something he could find some respect for. "Now," she smiles. "What insanity have you prepared for me today?"

"First off we have a car mechanic with a broken leg. Fractured in six places," Ric informed her.

"Six?!" she exclaimed.

"And a broken wrist and several nasty gashes on his leg, and a suspected ruptured spleen."

"How on _Earth_ did he manage that?!"

"Apparently the DIY approach doesn't always work," he smirked. "Cold coil spring broke the vice grips and, well, pinged at him." They entered the office and Serena fell into a chair as Ric placed her bag on her desk.

"And the spring pinging at him did all that?"

"There's five tonnes of pressure in those things if they're on the strut," he told her. His knowledge took her by surprise, but then he was the fountain of all knowledge, wasn't he? "It shouldn't really have been held with vice grips in the first place."

"So he's an idiot," Serena surmised with a smirk. "I know _nothing_ about that sort of thing, but even I know five tonnes of pressure is not going to be subdued by a couple of pairs of vice grips. I mean, really. What was he thinking?!" she ranted, pulling out her files from her bag. "Don't they have proper machines for that sort of thing?"

"Spring compressors. Hydraulic, usually."

"And why wasn't he using that?" she demanded, firing up her computer. "I've never understood the human instinct to ignore what is simple, safe and secure in favour of a quicker, dangerous and volatile way of doing things. It makes me wonder if the population of this planet are actually in possession of functional brain cells." She could hear his low chuckle and it made her look up; she glared at him him but he did not submit into silence. "And what is so funny?"

He was wearing a bright smile as he confessed, "It's good to see your exhaustion hasn't altered your opinion of the human race." She couldn't help but allow him a little smile at that. She knew she could never really hide from him anymore; he seemed to have learned her guises and how to see through them, much to her discomfort. "And besides, aren't you in favour of efficiency?"

"Efficiency, yes," she agreed, staring straight him. "Stupidity...not so much." She could see that smile breaking across his face again and, completely not in the mood for his teasing, she found herself resisting the overwhelming urge to go over and smack him. "And trying to hold five tonnes of tension with vice grips _is_ stupid."

She logged into her computer and waited, finding she was gazing at Ric with some degree of intensity. She could almost see the bond between them, strained but solid as a stone, and the amusement in his eyes at her words. She knew what amused him as well – here she was, ranting about stupidity, and she had been stupid enough to fall for Edward a second time. He stepped forward and sat on the edge of the desk; his concern, obvious in his softened expression, set her a little on edge.

"Are you sure you're alright, Serena?" The question was one she could not honestly answer, and she hated to lie to him. There were many things she would have lied to him over, but this, on a personal level, when he was trying to be a good friend and look out for her, was not one of those things. She'd done it once already this morning. She didn't have it in her to do it again. "You look exhausted."

"Thanks," she sarcastically sneered at him as she opened her emails, dreading to think what rubbish was clogging up her inbox this morning. "When is Mr. Springy booked into theatre?"

"Mr. Marshall," he pointedly replied, "is due in theatre at ten if scans show he needs it, which he probably will. You and I will be doing the procedure." It made Serena inwardly groan; normally she loved to be in theatre but today was an exception. Today all motivation had abandoned her; the effort it had taken her to get out of bed rather than call in sick had been ridiculous, especially for the woman who never slept in, always into work early and always happy that she had something worth getting up for every day.

She looked at her emails and found one sent at seven this morning, by Guy Self, calling a consultants' meeting at one o'clock today. Just what she needed. Locked in a room with the likes of Ric, Guy, Elliot and Jac, struggling in her tiredness to hold her tongue. "Oh, fantastic," she grumbled. "You couldn't have told me about this?!" He walked around to stand behind her, and she was sharply aware that his hands had come to rest on her shoulders as he leaned over her to read.

"I haven't checked my emails today," he admitted, his voice closer to her ear than she had been anticipating.

"So this is how it's going to be, is it?" she ranted. "Meetings at a few hours' notice?"

"Sounds like it," Ric concurred gently. "You're not going to change him so I wouldn't bother trying. You'll only get irritated." She sighed and leaned forward, her head in her hands; she was regretting leaving the safety of her bed, even if she had, just for a moment, hated how alone she felt in the middle of her bed, just for a moment. In that moment she had just wanted some company – having finally adapted to an empty home, her husband gone and her child at university, she was finding she wasn't a fan of it. Truthfully, she missed Eleanor rattling about. She missed the mess of another human being in the house rather than just her own meticulous tidying.

But she had got out of bed, as much as she was now regretting it.

She leaned back and turned her head, not realising Ric hadn't backed off, and her face collided with his, her nose hitting his jaw hard. "Ow!" she moaned, her hand covering her now painful nose. She took her hand away to find there was no blood, but it didn't make it any less painful. "Thanks for that!" she grumbled.

He rolled his eyes at her but didn't back away. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I will be. You've got a hard jawbone," she informed him. "Did you know this?"

"I do now," he smirked. She slapped his arm lightly, looking into his face for only a moment too long. He reached out and felt her nose lightly, making her wince. "It's fine. The pain will go in a few minutes."

"What you need is a distraction," he advised. Seeing him so close, and feeling so low as she did today, she could easily have taken him as a distraction, but she knew she would regret it tomorrow when she wasn't tired and worked up anymore. "Let's go and introduce you to Mr. Springy."

She sighed and stood up, letting him lead her onto the ward with a smile. The approached the bed and found a man lying there, clearly dosed up on morphine. "This is Ms. Campbell," Ric introduced her. "She will be your doctor today as well as me. This is Liam Marshall, thirty-three."

"And clearly doesn't follow health and safety very well," Serena couldn't help but add, her eyebrow raised and her arms folded across her chest.

Liam sighed, though he did not argue. Instead, he said, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't be making that mistake again." Serena held back a laugh, though she was glad this incident seemed to have knocked some sense into him.

"So what actually happened?" she asked him.

"Well, I had the struts out from last night and I got the right springs this morning – they sent the wrong ones yesterday – and I held it with vice grips as I usually do and gunned off the top bolt. Vice grips snapped and the spring shot right at me."

"Don't you have a compressor for that sort of thing?"

"Yeah."

"Are you going to use it from now on?"

"Yeah."

"Good," she smiled at him. He smiled back at her and she added, "Is there anyone we can call for you?"

"My wife's on her way, but thanks." He was remarkably polite in his answer, which was some light relief for Serena; she sometimes found it worrying that she had become used to the barrage of unpleasantness she received from quite a few patients. She smiled and walked away, leaning against the nurses' station.

Ric sauntered towards her, and when he reached her he said, "How's the nose?"

"Better. Still a bit sore, but better," she allowed. She didn't like the look on his face; it told her he was still concerned when he didn't have to be. "Stop worrying, Ric. I'm fine."

"I'll stop worrying if you can give me a petty reason for your mood," he shot back at her. She looked at the floor for a moment, struggling to hold back the truth. Independent, she had always been, but how would it have been to just, this one time, let it out? To just tell him she had a rotten night and that was why her temper and nerves were a little frayed today. To tell him of the paralysing nightmare and the subsequent sleepless night. To tell him she had woken alone and wished she had someone who would have woken her before it got as far as it did.

But that was admitting weakness – something she never could do. He, however, could see through her when she said it was nothing. "Just a bad night. It happens to the best of us," she smiled. He seemed less than convinced by her vague explanations. She moved in and kissed his cheek. "But thank you for your concern. That was really-"

"Don't you dare say it was sweet of me," Ric cut across her, reminding her why she liked him so much. He didn't let her say the clichés and he didn't expect anything of her except for her to be who she was. She felt him touch her waist lightly as he passed her, something that she never thought anything of before. But this time she let her hand fall onto the place he touched, just a little above her hip, and wondered what it would have been to have him wake her from her nightmares last night.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This was meant to be updated before now but a little crisis halted it. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed.**

**Sarah x**

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Serena sat in the AAU consultants' office and looked at the clock on the wall. It was half past four but it felt like midnight already; in half an hour she was allowed to go home, but the screen of unanswered emails before her had other ideas. It planned to keep her well into the evening as it delayed her paperwork that needed done before the weekend.

She looked up when the door quietly opened and shut, flashing Ric a tired smile and leaning back into her chair. "You know, you won't get fired if you just give yourself a break," he commented. "You look like Casper the friendly ghost. Or not-so-friendly," he grinned as she glared across the room at him. "Go _home_, Serena."

"To what?" she muttered. It was out of her mouth before she could process it, and she realised now that she was actually so tired it had loosened her tongue. She normally would have kept that to herself. "Sorry. I'm just tired and I'm missing Eleanor and...sorry."

"Don't be," he ordered her. "Myths may be invincible but we are only strong."

"Profound," she snorted. "You owe me a drink," she remembered suddenly.

"And how have you worked this out?"

"You bashed my nose, therefore you owe me a drink," she informed him. He looked up at her with a thoroughly amused smile.

"Excuse me, but _who_ bashed your nose?" He grinned at her and glanced at the clock. She looked around and found it was just short of twenty-five to. She turned around and looked at Ric, and then at the files and laptop on her desk. It was with guilt that she looked up at Ric and met his mischievous smile. At exactly the same time they shut the lids of their laptops and threw their belongings in their bags. They grabbed their coats but didn't bother putting them on, since Albie's was just over the road.

At the door they turned to grin at each other before Serena turned off the light and Ric shut the door behind them. She couldn't help but feel just a little lighter in his company, like the burden was shared with him while he was around her. She was smiling as they strolled through the main entrance and Guy Self walked past – she had fallen out with him at that meeting earlier, and now he looked more put out than she was able to feel with Ric at her side.

At the roadside, however, her amusement turned to mild horror at the weather conditions. It was raining heavily, the drops bouncing off the road with the force behind them. She sighed at the thought of dropping her belongings to out her coat on, as she had no umbrella today, and the effort involved for her tired body. But before she could do anything, Ric was pulling her in under his own umbrella. "Always prepared, I see," she quipped, her free arm wrapped around his waist as she tried to fit both of them under cover.

"It's Britain. You've always got to be prepared for rain."

As they walked, the wind picked up and blew the rain diagonally under the umbrella at her. It made quick work of soaking right through her thin shirt, and by the time they reached Albie's she was drenched, and she could have sworn she saw Ric looking through her now see-through shirt to the now clinging top underneath. It didn't really bother her. In fact, she quite liked that he paid her some attention.

She felt his hand on her back as he guided them to a table. It was a fight not to turn around and look a him, but she knew there was a danger she would cross this line she was walking every day.

She watched him as he stood at the bar. It wasn't that she didn't like him – she did, despite his sometimes frustrating ways – but she didn't want to stumble and for him to find his way into her heart. After all, what good could possibly have come of it? He sat down opposite her and handed her a glass of wine. "One of these days you will actually work yourself into the ground," he said to her, his tone heavily disapproving.

"Oh, because there is so much else worthwhile I could be doing," she grumbled. She wasn't in the mood for holding back; she had done it so long it tired her out to constantly be biting her tongue.

"What is wrong with you today?" he sighed into his wine glass. "Come on. Tell me."

"There's nothing wrong."

"Don't lie. I _know_ you're not OK, Serena," he insisted. To hear him so determined to get through to her made her resolve ever so slightly waver. What she could remember of the nightmares last night ran through her head, images of fire, darkness and hatred flashing through her mind with no discernible connection to her. All that was obvious to her was the fear the visions stirred in her, paralysing her so she couldn't even scream out.

She drank in silence for a moment. Ric wasn't going to give up on this, and that much was completely obvious. Since when had she known him to give up on her? She could see it in his face that he actually wanted to know. Whether she had it in her to weaken her own defences was entirely another matter. She was only as strong as that defence was, and she had proven to herself through her train wreck of a marriage exactly what was going to happen if she weakened it enough to let Ric in.

His hand reached across the table; as much as she would have loved to blame that action on the wine, she knew he'd not had nearly enough wine for it to have had any effect on his rationality. She looked up from their hands to his face, trying to work out what was going through that head of his. "I just didn't sleep last night," she confessed. "That's all. I'm just a bit tired and therefore just a little bit ratty."

"You're always 'just a little bit ratty.' That's why we love you."

"Thanks for that confidence boost, Ric," she sighed. "Anyway. Let's forget about that, shall we?" She could tell that it was with enormous reluctance that he laid the subject to rest, but she was more than sure it was only for the moment.

It wasn't long before he had her laughing, trying not to choke on her wine as she went toe-to-toe with him, back chatting him and smiling with more charm and intent with every glass of wine she drank. She was lucky it was Friday – she didn't have to get up and go to work with an alcohol-induced headache. She felt empowered by him as he opened up her heart after she had so forcefully closed it.

"I need the bathroom," she murmured. She tried to stand up but she almost lost her balance, having to lean on the table with the palm of her hand. All she could do was laugh, knowing exactly how she ended up like this. It was now almost ten o'clock, so she'd been here about five hours now, but it felt half that. She felt Ric's hand on her arm as he kept her steady. She looked around to see his face level with hers. For a moment she desperately wanted to kiss him, but she was too scared. Too scared that he would do to her what Edward had done, that he was break her down before she could stop him. "Stuff the bathroom. I need to go home."

"We can share a taxi," he agreed. She opened her mouth to protest, as he lived off her road home and would have been putting himself out, but she never got the chance. "Don't argue. You're drunk," he observed, making it clear he wasn't leaving her to get home alone while she was drunk.

"Oh, I'm not that drunk," she waved away his concern as she picked up her coat and bag.

"Go and walk in a straight line then," he challenged her. "Right over to the bar. Go on." She drew herself up to her full height and glared at him. She was _very_ drunk, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Instead she took one step forward and it all went rather well...until she tried to take a second step. She tripped and she felt him dart forward to catch her, but her weight pulled them both to the floor. Serena, in her inebriation, found this completely hilarious, descending into giggles into Ric's arm. He was lying next to her and she could hear his deep, low chuckle.

Two people – Zosia March and Sacha Levy – rushed over to help them. Serena took Sacha's hand and felt him haul her up with his arm around her waist. "Serena, go home. You're drunk," he said firmly to her. Zosia said something along the same lines to Ric but Serena was still laughing too much to properly listen to the young doctor.

"I'll call a caxi," she said, but that didn't sound right. "No, I'll call a tab," she corrected herself, but it still didn't sound right. She frowned as she tried to find the right way to say what she wanted to, but she couldn't string it together. She knew they knew what she meant though, so she just shrugged her shoulders and left it. Though Ric was also tipsy, he had been far more a responsible drinker tonight than she had, and he was able to get out his phone and call for a ride home.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Zosia exclaimed impatiently. She thrust a packet of crisps at Serena and ordered her, "Eat something." Serena only realised now she hadn't eaten since after twelve, not long before that one o'clock meeting. She was just glad she could laugh rather than just think about everything that frightened her.

She opened the packet of crisps and started eating, but it was seconds before she reached around to the nearest table for a napkin and spat them out. "Ugh. Salt and vigenar," she grumbled, but she frowned again. "Vinegar," she amended hastily. She laughed at the memory of a three-year-old Eleanor shouting out for 'vigenar' on her chips at the seaside, not long before the family had blown apart in epic fashion.

It was only when she was sat in the back of a taxi that she began to sober up; being so close to Ric, and being so alone with him, sobered her up a bit. "You're a good friend," she informed him, alcohol still making her a little soft in the head. "I'm lucky to have you."

He just smiled and shook his head at her drunkenness, and she couldn't blame him. He'd never really seen her drink herself into this state. He'd never seen her collapse to the floor in giggles, finally cutting herself some slack just as he had ordered her to.

The taxi pulled up outside her house and she paid the driver fumbling with her purse a little until she found money rather than plastic. Ric helped her out and walked her to her front door, and she realised now that she had never intended to let him go home. When the door was unlocked she found herself frightened by her own subconscious and its ideas. It didn't know what was best for her.

But she needed him here. So instead of sending him away like her head wanted, she pulled him close like her heart wanted her to, her lips crashing into his; he returned it with caution, like he couldn't understand why she was doing it. He took her inside and pulled away from her, closing the door behind them. He put his hands on her waist and said to her, "You _really_ do not want to have a drunken one night stand, Serena."

She couldn't help but agree with him and she felt like a fool. She would never have done that if she was drunk; in her defence, though, it wasn't like she felt nothing for him. She'd grown close to him in two years.

"I know. But please stay," she asked of him with a sigh, her hand resting flat on his chest. She didn't say why, but in truth, she knew this nightmare of hers would return when she fell asleep, and she wanted it cut short.

He was hesitant but he seemed to think better of leaving her in the house alone when she was so drunk. "OK. OK. I'll sleep on the couch."

"No, no. It'll do your back in," she told him. "We're both responsible adults. We can share a double bed, surely."

She saw his confusion but he took her upstairs anyway, his hand resting on her lower back in case she stumbled. Truthfully, she wanted to know if he cared enough to wake her up.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This is sappy. It's awful. I am sorry.**

**Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far.**

**Sarah x**

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The fire is bright in her eyes as she tries to see down the road. Eleanor is there somewhere. So is Ric. But through the flames she can't see them. "Ellie!" she screams out. "Ric!" She knows it's useless but she does it anyway, relieving some of the terror within her. She goes to open the window but reminds herself the handle will be hot to the touch.

Edward walks in the room and it upsets her train of thought. "But you're out there!" she protests. She feels her chest tighten with panic. "Ric and Ellie, they ran after you!" Without any thought for the consequences she runs to the front door and hastily opens it; the metal of the handle leaves an agonising burn on her hand but she doesn't care.

Her path is soon blocked by a wall of fire and she finds this is a place unknown to her. It's a small cottage on a long winding road lined with trees and long grass. She sees two yew trees in the overrun garden and the fire only as high as her waist a few feet away from her. It's not burning anything, lying unfuelled on the stones. She sees Eleanor and Ric on the other side, trapped by fire and choking on smoke, inches from passing out as they inhale the poison in the air that surrounded them.

"Ric! Ellie!" she screams out. Over and over again she screams but she realises only now that nothing is coming out. She knows they can't hear her call them, and she turns to Edward and begs him to help her. Somehow, in any way he possibly can...but he's as powerless as she is, so all she can do is keep forcing out her silent screams.

"_Serena_!" Ric's voice shatters through the roar of the fire. She tries to call back to him but she is just silent. "Serena...wake up!"

The dark room greeted her when she forced her eyes open and left the hell behind her in her mind, but reality reminded her that she was never silent when she screamed – her throat stung and ached with the amount of shouting she had done. She reached out and turned the lamp on, feeling her shaky breathing and cold sweat, recalling the fear and the fire that had consumed her for yet another night.

She turned around and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward, her head in her arms, her hands in her hair, crouching forward with her elbows between her knees. She wished she could stop dreaming about fire and family; it was terrifying. She had no idea what it meant but it never changed. It was always the same house, the same road, the same trees, the same people, the very same fire. It haunted her even as she sat here awake, trying to shake her mind away from what it had just left.

A hand fell onto her back and she jumped to her feet. She had completely forgotten she had invited Ric into her bed, so to feel his kind touch startled her. She stared at him for a moment, waiting for his accusations of hysterics and weakness, but they never came. Instead he said to her, "Serena, are you alright? I didn't think I'd be waking you from a nightmare." So he had woken her then. He cared about her.

"I'll be OK. Just let me get a clean pair of pyjamas. These are covered in sweat," she admitted, turning around and digging through her drawers for something she could cool off in.

Ric got up and said, "I'll just go down and get you a drink of water." She smiled to herself as she heard the door close, knowing it was him making himself scarce while she dressed out of respect for her. He would always be like that, she realised suddenly. She just never expected it to raise such affection in her to know that Ric respected her not just as a doctor and a human being, but as a woman as well.

She stepped out of her bottoms and pulled the t-shirt over her head, pulling on her fresh shorts and t-shirt. She could hear Ric slowly ambling up the stairs and again she smiled. Throwing her sweat-sodden pyjamas in the laundry basket at the end of the wardrobe, she sat down on the bed; the door opened and Ric walked in with a glass. She took it from him and drank deeply from it, glad for the cold relief it provided for her stinging throat. "Thank you," she murmured. He sat down next to her and she stared at him for a moment before she tore her eyes away to look at the clock. It was thirteen minutes past three in the morning, and she had slept off the worst of her alcohol intake.

"You've got a good set of lungs, I'll give you that," he commented jokingly. She nudged him playfully but she did smile slightly. "You know I don't think any less of you because you've got a recurring nightmare, don't you?"

"How do you know it's recurring?" Serena whispered.

"You've been exhausted all day yesterday, and I've seen you exhausted a few times recently. It just makes sense," he explained gently. "I would ask what they consist of but I know you won't tell me."

She sighed quietly and took another drink of water. Was there any point of hiding it from him when he seemed so accepting of this chink in her armour? "Fire," she muttered, but she knew he heard her through the silence. "It's always fire. Always Eleanor. Always Edward. Always you." It was dangerous move to confess to him that he held a place in her dreams and her nightmares. She managed to look around to see his reaction; he doesn't ask any more questions. He seemed to get the gist of what went on while she was asleep and he wasn't going to make her relive it when she was probably going to have to do so again anyway.

Ric's hand rested on Serena's back and she looked around at him with a soft smile. "I'm starting to regret not having that one night stand," she admitted. He laughed at her comment and now she regretted admitting her regret. "Sorry," she said. "I'm probably still half-asleep." It was a lie, a complete and utter lie, but she let him believe it because she couldn't face feeling any more vulnerable to him than she already did.

"Back to sleep for you then," he ordered her. She inwardly groaned and placed her glass on the bedside table while Ric went around to his side of the bed. She lay on her back and he lay on his stomach, and she turned the lamp off. She closed her eyes and smiled when she felt Ric's arm draped over her stomach, like he was telling her it was alright not to always be invincible. She was done with always pushing him out, and she was done with putting her guard up to him when it was clearly no use.

She turned her head to sense how close he was to her...very close was the answer she got. He was, in many respects, her best friend. Was that why she didn't feel half as unnerved by this quiet, harmless intimacy as she probably should have? Was that why she allowed it, because she knew he respected her and that he did care about her?

"You know, Serena, if you tell anyone about this, I'll deny it," he warned her, his voice muffled just a little by the pillow, but she heard that amused smirk in his voice. "Can't have the juniors thinking we're soft as putty, can we?" She had to laugh at his explanation; she could just imagine the reaction from those they worked with if they ever heard about this moment, this tenderness, they shared.

"Oh, God, no!" she agreed. "Could you see the look on Harry Tressler's face?" She could just picture the expression Harry would have donned if he knew that the two people – Raf aside – he thought of as those who made his life difficult were capable of cuddling and loving. It caused her to let out a very unladylike snort as she descended into laughter at exactly the same time as Ric did.

She managed to allow herself to wriggle only a little bit closer to him, but she couldn't sustain the vulnerability of lying with her face so close to his; she didn't trust that she wouldn't end up kissing him, because she couldn't trust that all she felt for him was friendship. She turned her back to him but he did not let her go, his arm just altering its position around her as she shifted onto her side.

How could she have put herself in this position? She had deliberately placed him here, right next to her, where he was where she could see, hear, smell and feel him. Never had she known herself to do such a thing with no intent but to feel close to someone she loved. To take away the loneliness she felt was all she had intended, but now she wasn't only enjoying the lack of that loneliness but she was enjoying _him_. It wasn't what was being taken away that she found herself glad for. It was the person who took it away.

He _was_ her best friend. He was the one who picked up the pieces when Edward broke her heart. He was the one who always tried to convince her of placidity and morality when she felt like someone's head should have been rolling across the floor, with the axe in her hand. He was the one who had calmed her only a month after she had started her job here, when Eleanor and Gabby had decided to mix drugs, alcohol and stupidity, and had confided in her that he had lost a son to drug addiction. He was the one who put up with her teasing only to eventually engage in it, no matter how annoying she knew he sometimes found her. He was the one who happily flirted endlessly with her. He was the best friend she was falling for.

"Ric," she began to speak, but the coward in her hoped that he had fallen asleep.

"Serena," he mumbled, half-asleep already. She paused and wondered if she shouldn't have even opened her mouth. There was a reason Ric stayed in her dreams with Eleanor and Edward. Until now she hadn't seen it but he was incredibly important to her. Of course he was. He was the only one she had started here with and, though they had their ups and downs, they never strayed too far from each other.

She brought her hands up to rest on his arm and sighed, "Nothing. It's nothing."

"Doesn't sound like nothing," he informed her sleepily, and she felt his grasp on her tighten by only the tiniest margin. She had made herself open to him. She had allowed him to touch her, to comfort her, to hold her tight, and yet she couldn't for the life of her say these things that he put in her head and in her heart. How could she when she was still recovering from all Edward had put her through, and she didn't want to get hurt again? Serena wasn't stupid enough to put herself in the firing line so soon.

But what if she _wasn't_ in the firing line? What if she could actually trust Ric not to hurt her? He wasn't Edward. She knew that. She listened for his breathing to slow down and even out, to tell her he had fallen asleep. When he did eventually fall asleep, she allowed herself to fully relax into his embrace. This way he would never know that she actually enjoyed being the subject of his attention; she loved that he was affectionate and respectful towards her, and yet he didn't make her feel like it was a weakness to feel so fond of someone.

She hesitantly closed her eyes, relieved when no fear fell over her and no fire invaded her vision. It felt calm and serene to fall asleep in Ric Griffin's arms, to know he had cared about her nightmares. That settled her slightly; that he cared settled her restless heart a little bit.

But something really did bother her as she drifted out of consciousness – she had apologised for saying something she was not sorry for.

* * *

**Hope this isn't too bad!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I don't like this chapter. That is all.**

**Thank you to all who have read and reviewed so far.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

The last place Serena wanted to be on Monday morning was on Darwin Ward, ordered up there by Guy. It seemed he wanted her to check if all was running smoothly since he was preoccupied by Keller – more specifically the twenty-six-year-old woman with whom he tried to build his bridges – and its own brand of insanity.

But this wasn't as bad as she had been fearing. Jac Naylor was keeping a civil tongue in her head in the presence of the deputy CEO. Jonny and Bonnie were keeping themselves subtle so as not to antagonise anyone. Elliot was in theatre being brilliant, where he belonged. Mo Effanga was sitting at a computer, ready to step up as peacekeeper. Serena was not deluded; she knew this was all for her benefit and Darwin was _never_ so civilised, but it was what she needed to see and they all knew and silently acknowledged that.

Left alone with Mo, her thoughts wandered to Friday night and Saturday morning. She had expected Ric to have been out the door as soon as humanly possible but it was just about noon by the time he eventually left her home. She had been left confused by her own actions.

She looked around at Jonny as he tended to the young man in HDU, and then back to Mo. "Jonny's your best friend, isn't he?" she asked Mo. The registrar looked up, surprised that Serena had brought the subject of men and friendship up.

"Um, yeah," Mo agreed. "Adele likes to say we're telepathically linked," she added with a grin.

"And you've never wondered..." Serena began, thinking back to how she had felt about Ric, about how much she had discovered within herself in one night with him. "Have you ever found yourself feeling anything else for him? Do you ever feel like there's something more than friendship between you? Falling in love with your best friend? Does that actually happen?"

Mo sniggered into her files and replied, "Jonny Mac? Never. He's my best mate. He's more like a brother than anything else. Why do you ask?" She looked up with an expression of stunned realisation upon her face, and Serena had to shift uncomfortably under that gaze. "This is about you and Ric, isn't it?"

"No, no, no," Serena laughed, lying through her teeth. "I'm just...curious." She watched Mo see right through her lies.

"It so is!" Mo laughed incredulously. "What's happened? Spill."

Serena sighed and sat in the computer chair next to Mo's; she didn't know how she felt and that was what bothered her. "I've never really had to deal with romance and _feelings_," Serena admitted, shuddering at that last word like it was alien to her. It wasn't; of course she felt. There would have been something badly wrong with her if she didn't. But she had never felt _this_.

"You were married!"

"Yeah, but it was different with Edward. If anything it should never have happened. The only good thing to come out of our marriage was Eleanor. There was no real falling in love. It was just this whirlwind. It all happened too fast. He didn't do monogamy and he only used romance to his own advantage. Twenty-six years is a long time to be under the thumb," she confessed quietly.

"As far as I've been told you were divorced for over half of that time," Mo reminded her.

"Divorced, yes. Separate, most definitely. But free? Not in the slightest."

Serena sighed as she realised there was not a word of a lie in what she said. Until now she had never really been free of her marriage to Edward Campbell. She had only found freedom in the truth and in her safety net. "What happened on Friday night? Sacha says you were off your face drunk."

"I wasn't _that_ bad."

"You ended up on the floor!"

"OK, so I was drunk. But when we woke up we were both very much sober."

"Knew it."

Serena suddenly realised what Mo was getting at and protested, "No, no, no! Nothing happened. I swear. I asked him to stay because I knew how drunk I was. He had to wake me up after three in the morning because-" she cut herself off when she realised she had said too much. "It doesn't matter why he woke me."

"But he was there for you when you needed him," Mo surmised for her. "You and Ric are completely different to me and Jonny. You two are flirtatious beyond belief. You dance around each other. The time will have to come when you end up dancing together."

The wisdom stunned Serena for a moment. She had always seen Mo as a friendly and lovable woman but there was always this guise of the joker Mo upheld. It seemed, though, that Mo was wiser than she allowed the world to see. "So what do you think I should do? Should I tell him what's going on in my head?"

Mo shrugged her shoulders and replied, "Yeah, if you want something more than friendship."

Serena stood up and smiled down at Mo. "Thanks for that." Mo just nodded with a smile and returned to her work, leaving Serena to wander away with her thoughts in her head.

There were many things she would have loved to say to Ric over the weekend. She would have loved for him to stay if she had the courage to speak up about the way she felt about him. On Saturday morning they had slept until nine, which was almost unheard of for Serena. She _never_ slept in, something she constantly reminded her mother when she was being nagged to take a day to sleep some stress off.

She entered the lift and pressed the button for Keller, sighing at the number of documents requiring her signature. It wasn't where she wanted to be, alone in that office until after dinner. On the fifth floor the doors opened and Zosia walked in, pressing the button for the ground floor. "Slept off your over-indulgence?" the young doctor smirked. Serena bit her tongue, having heard that Zosia and drink could be an interesting combination, because she knew they couldn't be compared because they were two different women. "I don't think I've ever seen you _that_ drunk."

"I don't think I've been _that_ drunk in many years," Serena admitted with a slight smile. She could hazily recall lying on the floor with Ric, even though how she got there was a bit of a blank at this point. "How did I end up on the floor?"

"Ric challenged you to walk in a straight line," Zosia grinned. "You managed one step and fell over."

"Oh dear," Serena chuckled.

"Oh dear indeed." The doors opened to reveal Keller but Serena didn't move. She didn't want to be on Keller. She didn't want to deny it anymore. "Aren't you getting out?" Zosia asked her.

"Um, no. No, I need to go to AAU," Serena said. What she was doing, she wasn't sure. She just needed to see Ric. She needed to take back an apology she had made, and she needed to tell him some truths. Zosia gave her a strange look as the doors closed on them. "I'm not mad. Not yet, anyway," she answered Zosia's look; the girl was obviously torn between amusement and confusion.

When the women stepped out onto AAU, Zosia was quickly collared by Raf, who obviously needed some assistance as, once again, the ED overspilled onto AAU during a major RTA. Ric was at the nurses' station giving Harry Tressler orders, and Serena couldn't help but smile as she recollected what she and Ric had decided about Harry in the early hours of Saturday morning. She strode over to them and said, "Ric, I need to speak to you."

"Shoot," he said distractedly, flicking his finger across an iPad.

"Somewhere private," she murmured. If she was going to say anything to him, it wasn't going to be where the likes of Raf and Harry could hear.

Ric looked up, obviously startled by her request. "Serena, I'm really quite busy here. There was a huge accident on the dual carriageway," he reminded her.

"Yeah, sorry," she sighed. "It's fine."

The word 'fine' seemed to trigger something in him, and she found she knew why. Every time she had ever told him she was fine, it had been a lie, and she knew he knew when she was lying to him about her emotional wellbeing. "No," he decided, placing his hand on her arm as he touched the screen again. "Go to my office. I'll be through in a minute or so."

Serena was surprised by his reaction; was he actually taking the time to hear her out? She nodded and touched his back. She hadn't realised until now that she didn't even think about all the times she touched him in support or graciousness. It was natural to her to be at ease with him, to touch him and to stand with him, to lie with him and to laugh with him. She smiled at him and stalked away to his office, trying to keep in mind why she was here.

It seemed she barely had time to prepare herself before the door opened and Ric stepped in with a look of extreme concern upon his face. "Is everything alright?" he asked her. She opened her mouth to speak but shut it again. "Are _you_ OK?"

Serena stepped towards him and said, "If I don't do this now, I'll never do it." He looked confused but he didn't back off at all. He stood there and waited for her to explain herself, but she didn't know if she could explain what ran through her right now. "About Friday night, well, Saturday morning," she amended. "I shouldn't have got drunk. I shouldn't have made you get in my bed."

"You were letting off steam and you didn't _make_ me do anything," he said calmly. He stepped towards her, closing what little gap there was between them. There was nothing in his face that threatened her or dissuaded her from her resolve of what her situation was, and yet she could feel her heart beating in her chest as she worked herself up. "What on Earth is going on with you?" he asked her, his hand once again on her upper arm as he tried to make out what she was thinking.

"I..." she began, but her voice failed her when she tried to be straight to the point and just come right out with it. "You're my best friend," she smiled sadly, realising only now the predicament she found herself in. "You're my best friend, Ric, and..." She couldn't finish what she wanted to say. She felt like it would sound like a joke. "When I said I was sorry at the weekend, I didn't mean it. I wasn't half-asleep."

"I know-" he tried to speak. She heard his voice but her mind didn't register what he was saying.

"I shouldn't regret not sleeping with you but I can't help it. I'm not sorry for not regretting regretting not sleeping with you," she asserted. She thought for a moment and realised she had even managed to confuse herself with that statement. "Does that even make any sense?"

He was repressing a smile – that was more than obvious – so she guessed she had lost him when she started with the double negatives. "Not really," he admitted. She had to smile, knowing that this was how she would always be about him now. She was always going to feel like this for him. "I lost the plot when you told me I'm your best friend."

She laughed and looked the floor only to find their feet together, reminding her how close their bodies were, the warmth flooding between them. "Well, you are. I mean, who else willingly spends time with me?" She didn't add that she had fallen in love with her best friend...what good could it really do? But she could feel his hand on her arm still; he was always what she needed him to be. An ally or an adversary – it didn't matter in the slightest. Sometimes she needed someone to be with her and sometimes she needed someone to be against her, and he always seemed to pick the right position.

In that moment, she bottled it, all the while knowing that everything she said made no sense, and that he must have been wondering why she needed to say this to him. Little did he know, but this wasn't even half of what she had wanted to tell him.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I was meant to write this yesterday but that didn't quite go to plan. As always, thanks to all who read and review.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena sat at her desk at six o'clock, groaning internally as Sacha Levy walked in with a small supermarket bag. As much as she liked the man and as adorable as he was, Serena wasn't in the mood for company. She was too busy kicking herself for messing up her chance to step forward. Instead she had found it easier to stand still and let the chance pass her by. But she looked up out of politeness anyway, because she was not rude enough to completely ignore a man so lovely.

"Hey," he greeted her softly. "Are you feeling the effects of your misadventures?"

"I don't do three day hangovers," Serena smirked.

"Just as well," Sacha laughed into his coffee cup. "I thought you'd really hurt yourself for a moment. It was a spectacular tumble you and Ric took." So she had taken Ric down to the floor with her then; Zosia hadn't mentioned that. "It was good to see you let it go," he admitted.

"Let what go?" she sharply quizzed him. He sat down and opened the bag and his top drawer. He pulled out two chocolate puddings and two teaspoons, throwing one of each across the room to Serena. She grinned and said, "Thanks." It was only when she opened the tub that she realised she had skipped lunch and hadn't eaten in about eleven or so hours.

Sacha was no coward, whatever his demeanour suggested. She knew he was honest enough to tell he what he was thinking. "Everything. Work, Edward, responsibility in general. It was good to see you happy."

She wasn't happy though, because she kept messing her own plans up. "Christ, was I really that bad?" she laughed slightly.

"Is being happy a bad thing?" Sacha challenged her. She met his gaze for a moment before she returned to her pudding. Of course happiness wasn't a bad thing. However, she was the kind of woman who kept everything she felt to herself, whether it was positive or negative. The happiness itself wasn't the bad thing. The loss of control that revealed that she was happiest in Ric's company, that was the bad thing.

She stared at him for a moment. "What would you do in my position?" she asked him, but he looked confused. "If you discovered your best friend is so much more to you than just a friend, that you love them in a way that goes well beyond friendship, what would you do?"

"You're asking me?" he replied incredulously. "You do realise my track record isn't that brilliant, don't you?" She raised an eyebrow at him in reply. "Look, if you think you can handle the intensity of a relationship with your best friend, whoever he or she may be, and that they can handle it too, then go for it. If you can't handle it then don't do it to yourself."

"It depends on our strength, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it does," he smiled. "But you're a clever woman. You'll work it out just fine."

"Your confidence in me may very well be misplaced."

"Shut up and eat your pudding," he grinned at her. She glared at him but she did laugh, unable to stay irritated with Sacha.

* * *

Serena sat in her car just wondering what to do. She didn't think she could go on like this for much longer. It wasn't so much tearing her apart as it was binding her shut, and she didn't want to be completely closed to the world. She didn't want to let the love of one man change her like that, because she hadn't closed herself up yet. Not fully. She kept her secrets like every other human being, but she did open up when it mattered.

She started the engine and noticed the service light was on – another bloody thing she had to remember to get done. The engine management light was on too, and even she knew that was rarely a good sign. And it needed its MOT an a couple of weeks as well. It had not long had a clutch put in, and she would go and pick a car that requires ten hours' labour to replace the clutch. She sighed and reversed out of her parking space. She noticed the time only now – it was half past eight at night now that she had finished the paperwork she abandoned on Friday night. However, she was glad it was done now; it was one less thing for her to worry about.

Her mind started to wander to Ric, and how stupid she had been to bottle it in front of him. He wasn't someone she had ever thought she would have fallen for; he was totally different to Edward, the man she had, however naively, married as a far younger and far less wise woman. Ric was level and kind, even if he was slightly stupid sometimes, but there was not a single person walking this planet who wasn't.

He didn't seem to realise what he meant to her. Even when they were in Cambridge, when he had been absorbed in Kathy, he had never realised that she had wanted to spend that night away with him. He had been blissfully ignorant. Or not so blissfully, depending on how she looked at it. But all the same, it hadn't twigged in his mind that Serena wanted him. That she had actually felt something for him. That she wasn't just his adversary and his ally but his friend too, and a woman who loved him and never knew it until now. Until she had fallen asleep in his arms, she hadn't understood that there was a strong bond between them, and that she felt more for him than any friend should have done.

She turned off towards her house and wished suddenly, yet again, that the house wasn't empty. She did it to herself sometimes, this loneliness that crept up on her when she did not expect to feel it.

Sacha had been right – to make herself happy was not wrong. She had endured her fair share in her forty-eight years. She had dealt with the stresses of her life mostly with stoicism, never really complaining about it. What did complaining really achieve anyway?

It wasn't long before she was at her front door, unlocking it as the cold wind started to nip at her fingers. She walked in and switched the lights on, reminding herself to book the car into a garage as she made her way to the kitchen. There wasn't much in the fridge – the shopping was another thing she had to do – but she managed to find the makings of a sandwich. She had no intentions of staying up much longer anyway, and she had already had a chocolate pudding courtesy of Sacha, albeit nearly three hours ago.

She briefly thought about phoning Eleanor but she stopped herself. She had phoned on Sunday. She needed to give her daughter room to grow up, not have her mother on the phone every two minutes; as much as it pained her, she switched her mobile off to remove the temptation.

She sat down with her sandwich and her glass of wine and switched the television on, not really expecting anything of much interest to her to appear on that screen. She settled on a news channel, sat back and tried to relax and eat her dinner, however pathetic it was. It was only when she was finishing her meal off when the doorbell rang and she grumbled to herself about idiots who called round her house at this time of the night. It was probably just somebody lost – nobody was going to go out of their way to see her after nine at night, were they?

But when she opened the door, she was alarmed to see it was Ric Griffin standing there with a puzzled look on his face. "Ric?"

"What did you mean?" he demanded of her.

"Excuse me?"

"Today, in the office," he elaborated. "There was something you were holding back." Her heart softened for him when she realised he had come to see her because he wanted to know what she had tried to tell him but had failed so miserably. She stepped aside and let him into her home; she really didn't want to do this on the doorstep.

Their stares held one another with no real effort, each one completely transfixed by the other for just a moment. "I meant exactly what I said," she sighed. "You're my best friend."

Losing her energy quite quickly, she sat on the stairs and watched him intently. He seemed to see beneath what she told him to what she didn't, a talent of his it appeared he used when it would only complicate matters. "But you're alright?" he asked her gently. "You can tell me if you're not."

"I'm OK," she assured him. "I'm just trying to get my head around a few things."

"Is this about that nightmare of yours?" Ric guessed. Maybe he was right and her deprivation of sleep had something to do with this but it wasn't the primary issue here. "Because it can't hurt you. You're safe." She let out a little laugh when she began to understand how much he cared about her. "What?"

"You," she laughed. "You always _worry_."

"And you don't?" he countered. She smiled and looked down at her fingers for a distraction but it didn't provide that much of a distraction that she could ignore his charming little smile or the security he brought into her home. He sat down on the step beside her and stared at her for a moment. She felt him analysing her face and her eyes, probably seeing everything she was attempting to hide. "You've been acting very oddly recently," he informed her. "Are you sure it's just tiredness?"

She tried to find the strength Sacha had told her she would need, but she couldn't dig it up. The courage to speak what resided in her heart failed her. "I'm OK," she repeated gently, placing her hand on his leg and patting it lightly. "But thank you for caring." She smiled at him and kissed his cheek, freezing when he turned to face her. His face was soft and relaxed, his hand falling onto hers as he told her he would always care about her.

She reached up and took her hand from between his palm and his leg; she touched his cheek with a smile she knew would convey the sadness her internal conflict was causing her. Her fingers stroked his face lightly, her thumb falling onto his bottom lip. When she felt herself inching closer to him, wanting so much to kiss him, she forced herself back before she fell over this line she walked. It wasn't that she didn't want to. There was nothing she would have loved more at that moment, but right now she didn't know if she had it in her. Her insecurities got the better of her, rendering her incapable of moving towards Ric and unwilling to back off from him.

She pulled away completely and broke all physical contact with him; she only wished it was that easy to sever whatever emotional connection it was that she felt with him. "I'd better get ready for bed," she muttered. "It's been a long day."

"Well, I just wanted to know if there was anything you needed to tell me and that you're alright," Ric said. "Obviously there isn't anything to tell and you say you're OK, so I'd better be on my way." As he stood up she caught his hand, willing the words to come out of her mouth. The short journey of her thoughts between her heart, brain and mouth seemed to be impossible, like there was some sort of block before the words could pass her lips.

He turned to look down at her and all she could say was, "Goodnight, Ric."

He smiled and answered her with, "Goodnight, Serena," and he squeezed her hand gently before he headed to the door, leaving her sitting on the stairs. She didn't want to but she was letting him walk away, because she knew now was not a good time to admit what she felt towards him.

She watched him leave her home and, once he was gone, she leaned to her right into the wall and silently wished she had said something. How many times did she have to do this to herself before she managed to do right by herself for once?

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: ****I'm not entirely happy with this chapter but I never am happy with what I write. Thanks to all who read and review.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

On Friday afternoon, Serena found herself at the AAU nurses' station, listening to Adele Effanga trying to persuade her that she needed a night out. However, she had a ready excuse – her car needed picked up from the garage at half-past five. "Oh, please, Ms. Campbell," Adele whined. "We need someone...maternal," she chose her words carefully.

"Maternal?" she snorted to herself, remembering her failings when it came to motherhood. "Someone to keep you out of trouble is more likely. And besides, it seems I'm silly drunk myself. Silly enough to give you lot a run for your money."

"Oh, yeah. Mo told me you fell over," Adele giggled.

"Of course she did." Serena had almost forgotten Mo and Adele were sisters, and that Mo would have found it hilarious to see whatever it was Serena Campbell did when she was drunk. Her mobile rang and she felt the same gut wrenching dread as she did every time the phone had rung since Christmas Eve – that it was Edward. But it wasn't. "Serena Campbell," she said politely, since she didn't know who it was.

"Hello," came a young man's voice. "Stuart here, from the garage. We've just done the MOT on your car, Ms. Campbell, and it failed on the back brakes and two rear coil springs. Oh, and the engine management light is on."

"Oh, joy," she groaned. She had forgotten to tell them this morning that the light was one.

"Yeah, it sucks, but it could be a lot worse. The bottom line is that one side of the handbrake cable has snapped, the rear pads need done, and that the two springs will need replaced. Would you like us to replace them?"

"Well, yes," she agreed. "That would be a good idea. How long will it take?"

"There lies the problem. Neither job is a two minute one. To get to the rear springs we have to take the back seat out, and to do the handbrake cable we have to take out a lot of carpet and possibly the central section of the front. I'd say that we'd need until Tuesday, though we might be done by Monday night. It's going to cost three hundred and nine pounds all in all, including parts, labour and VAT."  
"But it's better than driving a death trap," she concluded. "Yeah, go ahead. And whatever it is causing the engine light thing," she added, "just deal with that too, please."

"Alright, I'll put it on the machine for you but if it's anything majorly amiss, I'll call you."

"OK," she agreed. "I'll see you whenever it's ready." She sighed and hung up the phone, realising now that she no longer had an excuse not to go to Albie's with the younger women after work. She no longer had to be at the garage for half-past five, and she didn't have the heart to lie to them.

"Car problems?" Ric asked her gently. She started slightly having failed to hear him creep up on her. "'Engine light thing' doesn't sound too great," he lightly teased her lack of patience for her own car. She glared at him but he smiled and squeezed her shoulder. "Don't worry so much, Serena. Just _smile_."

"Back brake pads, handbrake cable, rear coil springs," she listed. "Apparently they'll have to take the back seat out to do the springs."

"Oh dear," he chuckled. "It's the mechanic I feel sorry for." She sighed and stood up, acutely aware that Adele was still there, discussing a patient with Mary-Claire. She only realised his hand was still on her shoulder when his fingers brushed her neck. "I can give you a lift home tonight if you want," he offered. "There's no way you're getting the car back today if that's the state of it."

Serena looked around at the girls and knew she couldn't leave them when they specifically asked her. "I've been collared to go to Albie's tonight."

"Well, we'll both go."

She looked at him for a moment, utterly confused by his reaction. She hadn't expected the offer of a lift home, never mind the offer of his company at the bar. He was being unusually kind to her. "Why are you offering?" she asked, suspicious of his motives, whatever they might be. His eyes scrutinised her for a moment before his face broke into a wide smile. "What?!"

He laughed slightly and touched her arm. "I'm trying to be a good friend," he explained, like it was completely obvious. But there was something else there, a worry and a concern, and strange kind of fondness she'd seen many times but never quite got used to. "Come on. You get to please Adele and Mary-Claire and you don't have to put up with their sole drunken company. Two birds, one stone."

"Oh, alright," she sighed. "But don't even think about getting me drunk. Not after last week." She watched him smile at the memory – at least one of them was capable of recalling the events of last Friday night – and she saw that charm she loved so much rising to the surface. Truth be told, she was in that sort of mood where drinking would only have made her emotional, something she didn't want to be.

She watched him walk away and couldn't help but smile, remembering why she was so drawn to him. He was looking out for her even when she didn't need it. Or maybe she did need it and she just didn't see it herself; it was a habit of a lifetime for her. "So you're coming out with us?" Mary-Claire asked from behind her. Serena turned and looked at the nurse, trying to understand why she found it so easy to get long with the ex-wife of the man who made her life miserable, considering Serena had backed him to the hilt.

"Yeah, looks like it, doesn't it?" Serena agreed, her eyes following Ric as he stood between Harry Tressler and a patient, obviously telling Harry off for something he had done.

"Someone's got the love bug," Mary-Claire sang quietly as she practically skipped away, seeming very pleased with herself. If Serena was prone to paranoia, she would have said this whole thing was a conspiracy.

It was six o'clock when they all sat at the bar, and it didn't take long for Mary-Claire and Adele to get distracted; it made Serena wonder why on Earth she had been dragged here in the first place when she could have been at home, on the sofa, with a glass (maybe a bottle) of wine and some peace and loneliness. Not that she would have lasted very long – she was really quite tired.

Keeping an eye on those who first asked her here, she turned to the barman and ordered her usual glass of wine as Ric ordered an orange juice, adamant that he was driving her home. She wasn't complaining. After the day she'd had she was in need of a drink.

But they were closer than they usually were. There was barely any space between them, their shoulders touching as she smiled at his wry sense of humour. She smiled more in his company than she did in anyone else's, and for that she loved him. She burned to say it but she froze to think it, unable to get past the cold fear the prospect put through her. "You know, Ric..." she began, but she couldn't finish her sentence.

She felt a pair of hands on her shoulders and looked around to see Sacha's encouraging smile; he seemed to have figured out just what she was getting at when she had asked his opinion on what she should have been doing. "Serena?" Ric asked her. "What is it that's bothering you so much? You've been like this for a week now."

"Mary-Claire was right," Serena muttered into her glass.

"About what?"

"She said I've got the 'love bug.' Me, of all people!" she exclaimed, losing all patience with herself. It had to come out at some point or it was going to do her head in, and at least in public the damage was easier contained.

"Love bug?" he repeated with a smile. "Oh, God. Not Edward again, is it?"

"How stupid do you think I am?" Serena raised an eyebrow at him. "No, it's...it's someone else. Someone I've known quite a while now," she admitted. Serena looked round to Ric, and she could have sworn there was the tiniest hint of jealousy in his dark eyes. "I didn't mean to fall for him. If just _happened_, and now I can't stop it."

She watched him carefully as she gauged his reaction. He seemed contemplative, like there was something he wanted to say but was holding it back. "So what have you done about it?" he asked her.

She took another sip of her wine and responded to him, "Nothing yet. Maybe I won't say anything. I'm not sure I've got the nerve."

"Well, if he hurts you, he's got me to deal with," he informed her, his smile contagious as she felt warmth spreading through her in the knowledge he cared about her welfare. "If he hurts you like Edward did, he'll regret it."

"He won't," she assured him. "He's a good hearted man. He's already so close to me – he just doesn't understand how close yet." It was a dangerous path to tread, the line she walked. "He's already my best friend," she confessed, drinking her wine as a distraction. She felt his eyes burning through her and she knew he had cottoned on to it. She knew he knew what she meant.

She turned and met his intense gaze, feeling the attraction pulling them together and the fear driving them apart. She shouldn't have said anything; that much was obvious in her own apprehension. "Serena..."

"I'm sorry, Ric," she sincerely apologised. "I shouldn't have said it." Needing to get away for a moment, she tried to find an excuse to leave without him, to go and order a taxi. But for now she needed an immediate way out, even if it was only temporary. "I'm just going to go to the bathroom." She stood up and turned her back to walk away from him, but a hand caught hers before she was out of his reach. His touch rooted her to the spot, and he got to his feet.

"_Serena_," he repeated, this time with more earnest. She managed to turn around and face him, trying not to let him see how much she had upset herself by admitting that she had allowed herself to fall for her best friend. "You can't say that and just walk off." It was a fair point, though one she hadn't thought of. She hadn't taken into account how the knowledge was going to make him feel, the awkwardness it was going to cause between them. It was reckless and it was stupid; when was she going to learn to keep her big mouth shut?

"Ric, I am _so_ sorry," she whispered.

She tried to pull away from him but his strength was greater than hers. She was stunned when his lips pressed into hers, his arm pulling her tight around her waist. She smiled despite herself and returned his kiss, wrapping her arm around his neck. It was only when she could actually hear the music that she realised everyone was watching her, watching them, but she smiled into their kiss anyway; she could scarcely believe that he had reacted this way, that he seemed to return the feelings she had for him.

They broke away for oxygen, something they have just deprived themselves of, and she leaned her cheek against his and closed her eyes. She could feel that his arm was still around her, and hers was still around him, and she pulled the embrace closer so that she was just hugging him tight, completely in love with her best friend.

"I think," he whispered into her ear, "that your best friend is a very lucky man."

She laughed into his neck and pulled away from him; she turned to see Mary-Claire standing with a large glass in her hand and an expression of knowing on her soft, pretty face. Sacha shot Serena a little grin and distracted Mary-Claire and the rest of the Holby staff and left Serena to wonder what the hell she was meant to do now.

Now she thought on it, this was _such_ a bad idea. And because of that, she dissolved their embrace and picked up her bag and coat, and she half-ran outside to the hellish freedom of knowing she could not be all she wanted to be.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'm really not all to pleased with this chapter but it's 3am and I'm sick of trying to rework it to rid it of softness now. Thank you, as always, to all who read and review!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena stood outside and inhaled the spring air. How she wished she had her car back – it would have made for a quick and easy escape, drink driving or not. She didn't know why she wanted to escape. All she knew was that she couldn't sustain what she loved, and therefore she could never sustain a relationship with Ric because she loved him. Because she loved him, she hated the thought of hurting him, something she was bound to do in the end. She had always watched as everything she loved was destroyed, and she cared about him too much to allow that to happen.

"Serena," she heard her name called across the car park. It was Ric – she could recognise his voice anywhere – but she didn't turn. She was messing him about now and she knew it. "Serena, why are you out here?" She closed her eyes and hoped he would go away but in her heart she knew he couldn't. As much as she wished he would, he would not, could not, leave her alone after all that; she didn't blame him for it at all. If anything, it solidified everything she felt for him to know he gave a damn.

She heard his footsteps draw near and she eventually felt his hand on her back. "Please don't do this, Ric," she said to him; she didn't open her eyes or face him, because she knew what she would see. She knew he was confused and she knew he wanted to understand her mentality, but sometimes she wondered herself who she really was. How could she expect him to understand her when she struggled sometimes with it herself?

"What is this wall you keep slamming into?"

"I can't love you," she confessed quietly, opening her eyes and staring forwards. "It won't end well. You wouldn't be able to put up with me for very long." She turned slowly to find him standing there, just waiting for her to face him.

"I've put up with you for two years now," he reminded her with a slight smile.

"And why do you even put up with me on that level?"

She felt his hand move to her waist, resting there like it was the most natural thing on the planet. "Because I love you too," he informed her gently. "On some level, in the back of mind, I knew that. It's the reason I try to look after you, even when you push me away. I see that now."

She sighed to herself when she realised she would have dealt with his rejection than she was dealing with his acceptance. Never had she known this feeling when she knew she could have it if she wanted it, and never had it looked so right and felt so good to love one person. But she hadn't planned on loving him at all, and that terrified her. It wasn't something she had a great deal of control over; she could control her head, or at least what the world saw of it, but her heart was more free and more volatile. It did what it wanted. It paralysed her.

But here she was, with him, as they both laid themselves on the line for one another. He would always be her friend, first and foremost. She could see that he was always going to be her best friend above anything else. Maybe, though, that was a good thing. Maybe it meant that he could love her better because the relationship between them was based on a solid friendship.

"Everything I love only dies," she murmured She didn't want to explain everything that lay behind that statement so she added, "Every relationship I actually care about is destroyed."

"I won't let that happen."

"You can't promise that." Serena stared at Ric, and she knew he saw what she was telling him. He couldn't tell her they wouldn't get hurt because neither one of them could see the future. Neither one could do that. Neither could know what was going to happen tomorrow or how it would affect them. The thought was terrifying. "Say we did end up in a _relationship_," she allowed, the last word one she struggled to utter. "What happens if it all goes wrong?"

"If it doesn't work out, we can say we tried," Ric said to her. "No matter what happens between us, you'll always be my friend. _I_ will always be _your_ friend."

Serena reached out and took his face in his hands, feeling the softness of his skin on her fingers. "I shouldn't love my friend like this," she whispered to him, her voice easily heard through the clean evening air. "But I do." She steeled herself, gathering all her courage, and stepped towards him as she closed the already short distance between them. His face still in her hands, she leaned in until their noses were gently touching. It reminded her of when she had hit her nose off his face and she smiled at the memory when she kissed him softly, nervously and almost fearfully. She could feel his arms wrap around her waist, pulling her close.

She pulled away, her hands still on his face and his arms still around her, and stared into his eyes. "You are beautiful, Serena," he informed her. She looked past him, over his shoulder, not wanting to talk about her image of herself. She didn't see beauty in herself. Not the way Ric seemed to. The weight of the world had taken it from her years ago, leaving her this person who stood here in Ric's arms. To hear him say it caused her eyes to sting with tears she didn't want him to see; she knew if he saw everything, if he saw what she hid, he wouldn't have seen beauty.

She dropped her hands and pulled him into a tight cuddle, trying to make sense of the turn things had taken, all caused by a moment of reckless courage on her part.

"This is a side to you we don't see very often," he chuckled into her ear; he squeezed her tight. "It's good to be reminded you're only human."

"I've never been anything more," she reminded him, much as she was loathe to admit it. She hated that he saw her weak spots and he knew what hurt her; it gave him the knowledge of how best to hurt her, and it took a massive amount of effort and trust to believe he would not do that to her.

"Do you want to go home?" he asked her. She nodded into his shoulder and she knew he felt her response. He rubbed her back and separated their embrace.

His arm around her shoulders, he guided her across to his car, unlocking it on the way over. Serena got in the passenger seat and he started the engine, setting off along that old familiar road. She gazed out the window and wondered who she was and who she was capable of being, knowing all the while she could never be the same again. She learned the hard way that loving someone changed a person. It changed their heart. It either clouded their vision or made the world clearer. It either coloured their judgement or showed them everything they'd never understood.

She watched the streetlights speed past the car and she listened to the familiar low growl of the engine in a car she had been a passenger in a few times now. She inhaled the scent of the man at the wheel, something she knew well but had got used to until she barely noticed it. She felt the silence in the air between them, never uncomfortable but always contemplative.

She was lost in this little world until the car suddenly stopped and she looked around to see her house. He cut the engine and said, "I'll walk you to the door."

"I'm not drunk," she smirked.

"Still, I want to."

She didn't object; she just picked up her bag and got out, hearing his door slam before she closed hers. She felt around in her bag for her keys and proceeded to the door, unlocking it with far more ease than last Friday night. As the door opened to reveal the dark hall, her mail on the floor and the warmth of the building hitting her, she realised that she didn't have to be alone. "Stay," she murmured to him. She turned around and stared at him, and when he did not answer, she repeated, "Stay. Just stay with me, Ric."

He allowed a slight smile, and she saw he was agreeing to it. She stepped into her home and switched the lights on and picked up her mail. She pulled her coat off and hung it up, wandering to the living room as Ric did the same. She felt alone again as she isolated herself in an attempt to protect herself, but she knew he was there. She knew he was always going to be there and she would always love him in some way. She knew she wasn't really alone. She just felt it.

She let herself just fall onto the sofa, too tired to make the effort to sit down with any care or femininity. It wasn't long before Ric was sitting next to her and she felt the need to say something – she just had no clue what it was she was supposed to say. But she spoke anyway. "I'm sorry for the way I've done this," she quietly said. "I know I didn't do it with much grace."

He just smiled and took her hand in his, leaving to wonder what he was thinking about her. She never believed that people saw much good in her, because she didn't see it herself, but Ric seemed to. He seemed to see the things she couldn't. The loneliness seemed to diminish even just having him here with her; how he did that was something she struggled to comprehend, but she was grateful for it anyway.

She laughed slightly, and he shot her a questioning look. "I am so_ tired_," she explained.

"Bed," he ordered her immediately. She raised a challenging eyebrow at him but knew better than to think he would back down on her wellbeing. She smiled and pulled him up with her, closing the door and switching the lights off on the path to the stairs.

Serena put the bedroom light on and cringed slightly at the untidy state of her room. It wasn't that bad, but she hated mess and the disorder was annoying her. Trying to ignore it, she turned around to kiss Ric, but it got the better of her. She sighed and bent over to pick up last night's pyjamas off the floor, dumping them in the laundry basket. She picked up the dressing gown off the bed and hung it up, but that was as far as she got. Ric had his hand around her wrist and he held out pyjamas to her.

"You're exhausted. I can see it in your eyes."

"I'm fine," she brushed his concern away. It was her knee-jerk reaction, but it was rarely ever true anymore. She huffed slightly and took them from him, watching him wander to the bathroom to undress, that politeness and respect coming to the surface again. She quickly got changed and threw her clothes into the basket, and she brushed her teeth once Ric left the bathroom.

She got into the bed and she felt Ric climb in next to her, her back to him as she lay on her side. She hadn't expected him to have so much respect and care for her, but she should have known it.

"Ric," she whispered through the darkness to him. She felt his arm fall over her waist and knew he had heard her. "Why did you wake me up last week?"

"What the hell kind of stupid question is that?" he demanded of her, his face resting against her shoulder.

"Well, why didn't you just leave me screaming until it passed?"

"First, the screams you let out would have made it impossible for me to sleep. And secondly, you sounded terrified. I'm not going to leave you in a situation that scares the living daylights out of you, even if it _is_ just in you head," he explained. "Now stop being daft and go to sleep."

She smiled as his grip around her tightened, his hand resting on her stomach. "Goodnight, Ric."

"Goodnight, Serena."

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I planned this to be different but that will be the next chapter, though I've not exactly decided what Serena will tell Ric and what she will hide from him.**

**As always, thanks to all who read and review!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena lay in Ric's arms, unable sleep just because it was too early. She could feel his heavy breathing, his chest moving against her back, and she was in no doubt he was out for the count. It made her smile to feel him calm and relaxed, another human being who could bear her company. It reminded her of the other two men she had fallen in love with, though in Edward's case it was more horrifically complicated than that, and how neither relationship had been even remotely healthy for her in the end.

And then there was Ric, a man she had reluctantly befriended two years ago. A man who seemed to do his utmost to drive her up the wall at times, and yet he was good to her at the same time, usually doing the things he did for all the right reasons. But she struggled trusting him sometimes anyway, not because he gave her reason not to trust him, but because her life itself has been its own cautionary tale to never take what was in front of her for its face value. Nothing and nobody could be fully trusted – that, she had learned the hard way.

She teased him, and she had to admit she loved doing so, but there was so much more under that surface of smiles and charm. It was a combination of the need to be loved and the need to survive, battling against each other until she had only been able to love him and never let him know, and to never, _ever_ let it get beyond a close, flirtatious, loving friendship.

That had worked then.

She let her hands fall on top of his as they locked his arms around her waist, and she felt him stir; she realised too late her touch had woke him up, and she looked at her alarm clock to find it was after nine at night – she'd been lying here a little under an hour. "Serena?" his sleepy voice rang out. "Are you alright?"

"Stop worrying," she smiled. "Go back to sleep."

"Why aren't you asleep?"

She didn't say that she was afraid to, even though that was part of it; mostly it was because it was too early for her to sleep properly, no matter how long a day she had endured. She smiled when she felt a kiss placed on the back of her neck, and it told her he wasn't going to walk away. Not yet, anyway. But she hadn't told him everything, and she justified how she could but she knew one day she was going to have to lay it all out for him to see.

She knew how Ric must have felt in Cambridge when Kathy died. She knew the pain was numbing and the torment was heartbreaking, but how could she have said that to him after getting spectacularly drunk and having a blissfully ignorant one night stand with a slightly strange yet still lovely Canadian man? How could she had brought herself to explain to him that the pain would fade but the memory would remain, stirred by things as strange and as insignificant as the smell of the rain and the sound of an open fire? She knew it seemed like simply dying for the right to feel, and that sometimes losing that right might have been so much easier.

Serena was brought back to Earth when she felt Ric's hand move until his fingers were stroking her face so lightly that she could easily have imagined it. "Serena?" he asked her. She turned in his arms, careful not to hurt him, until her face was an inch from his. She leaned in and gently kissed him, their closeness a comfort to her as she raked over everything she was.

She heard the low growl of what she could only assume was Ric's stomach and smiled into his chest. "Typical man," she muttered. "I'd better feed you before you end up leaving my house as bones in a body bag," she joked.

"It's fine," he insisted as she sat up and switched the lamp on.

"Don't be silly," she scolded him gently, already pulling her slippers on. She smiled when she heard him get out of bed, effectively giving in to his hunger. She threw him one of her old dressing gowns in the knowledge it would just about fit him, deliberately picking the pink one. She heard him grumble and grinned as she half-ran down the stairs with him at her back.

In the kitchen she turned the light on, letting out an involuntary squeal when she felt a pair of hands on her sides. She turned on him and he pulled her in, kissing her fiercely. The fluffiness of the dressing gown hit her skin and she suddenly descended into giggles, picturing him in a pink dressing gown looking extremely disgruntled. In retaliation he soon lifted her onto the counter and she reached for his face, the intensity of their kiss so strong it was almost frightening. "Food," she reminded him between kisses. "Ric...food."

She forced him away and hopped off the counter, and she threw some bread in the toaster, unwilling to put on the cooker at the time of the night. She got out the butter and the jam and a knife, and Ric leaned against the counter next to her. "Toast and jam. I'll call MasterChef, shall I?" he teased her. She hit his chest with the back of her hand but smiled anyway.

Soon they were sat at the kitchen table with their toast, and she had to admit that she had been hungry too, even if she hadn't felt it before. The sweetness spreading across her mouth made her hungry for more sugar which, at this time of the night, was a bad idea. "Ric," she said as she bit into the hot bread. "Ric, how do you think my mother's going to react to me and you and whatever _this_ is? She was bad enough with Edward last year."

"You're forgetting something though," Ric smiled. She looked up and hoped he had something helpful to say. "_I_ am not Edward. Your mother actually likes _me_."

"Don't look so smug," she muttered. "She goes off people rather quickly."

"Like mother like daughter," he teased her lightly. She chucked her toast crust across the table at him indignantly, and he immediately got to his feet. Seeing that look of mischief in his eyes she stood up, her first instinct to dart up the stairs being the one she trusted and followed. But by the time she reached her bedroom his arms were around her waist. "Now, didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?" he murmured into her ear. She smiled and squirmed in his arms, unable to stop herself laughing.

"Didn't yours ever tell you about scorned women?"

She turned in his arms and kissed him hard and with a wide smile. Was this what it was to be with her best friend? It was the happiest she had been in many years, as conflicted as she still was over this. It was the security of him that made it feel so easy to love him, and her own flaws that made it so difficult to be loved by him. She deepened their kiss and let him guide her onto the bed, his hands on her waist.

Now she could feel his muscular weight leaning over her, she found her self-assurance wavering, simply because she wasn't sure she was what he wanted, but she wrapped her arms around him anyway. When he pulled away, it worried her, but the look in his eyes disproved it. "You're exhausted," he accused. "Why didn't you say?"

"How do you know?" Of course she was exhausted, but she had done her utmost to hide it since she hadn't a hope in hell of sleeping very soon.

"Your grip is weak," he commented. "Your arms, they're tired. Come on. Sleep time."

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Shut up," she muttered with a quick kiss.

"More to the point, I'm old, as you love to remind me, and I'm just as tired as you are."

He stood up and pulled the dressing gown off, hanging it up before he climbed into bed. It was with a mixture of relief and fear that she got in next to him and turned out the light, wondering why he had stopped. There must have been something wrong with her or he would have taken her there and then. Edward had never hesitated, nor had any other man, but the one she loved, the one who actually mattered, had hesitated. She didn't know why, but she hated that feeling.

When she felt Ric settle it was once again with her body in his embrace, and she couldn't help but say to him, "If you don't want me, Ric, all you have to do is say."

"Don't be daft," he sleepily murmured. She let out a soft chuckle when she realised he really was just exhausted – nothing less and nothing more.

"I know I'm not perfect," she confessed, empowered by the darkness and his subsequent inability to see her facial betrayals. "I'm not beautiful or kind or lovable. I'm intelligent and I'm ruthless but I love you. Please, don't doubt that."

She felt him turn her over and pull her tight, closing the distance between them. "I repeat," he said to her. "Don't be daft."

Serena began to relax next to him as he fell asleep, his face resting against her neck lightly. She let her mind drift into the past thirty years of her life, and to America, where she had loved and where she had lost. She remembered being nineteen years old and in her first year at Harvard, fascinated by the South when she had found Mason Hunter, a young man from Biloxi, who shared her ambition to study medicine. Until her third year they had been a strong, unbreakable couple. That summer they had travelled through Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee...wherever their hearts had taken them. She had not been to Biloxi since; it was the one city she consistently avoided when she travelled America.

One day she would have loved to go back there, to his hometown. She had long recovered from the tragedy of such a promising life cut so short, but she still felt the wound sometimes. When she had lost that boy she had lost a whole future she had planned, and she had lived with that ever since.

When she had returned to Harvard she had stumbled across Edward. He had taken her in, oblivious to the fact she had been grieving. In truth, she doubted very much she knew what she was doing at that point, what she had been letting herself in for.

In Ric's arms, she closed her eyes and remembered Mason's young face, taken from her too soon. She remembered so many things and she told herself it wasn't significant, but it was. Of course it was.

Ric didn't know it, and she didn't know if she would ever tell him, but they had felt the same pain. They had both grieved a lover's death. That was why she had remained silent about Kathy – she knew there was little she could have said that would have done him any good, but she had silently let him know she was there if ever he needed her.

But now was not Mason. It was not Edward. It was not Kathy. It was not Lola or Thandie or any of Ric's other wives. It was Serena and Ric, and their friendship changing into something she had never really known before. His lips kissed her neck as he slept and she smiled, knowing her present was what she was living for, not her past. Her heart hurt to think of Edward and of Mason but she felt hope next to Ric. Hope was not something she often felt.

She sighed and let herself drift into sleep, knowing Ric was here if she needed the care of someone ripping her from her nightmares.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This chapter isn't one I like but, yet again, it's after 3am and I've been trying to rework it too long with no joy.**

**As always, thanks to all who read and review!**

**Sarah x**

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The river below is deceptive. She knows that. She has been told people have died in that river.

The bridge she stands on is deceptive. It looks and feels weak. It's been standing strong for long enough, but it's not the bridge she's stood on before. It's the bridge she's seen in the photographs. The Tallahatchie Bridge that burned down in 1972 is the one she stands on, but it's definitely not been set alight.

The weather is deceptive. The sky is overcast but there is an astonishing heat, making her neck and back sweat into her top.

She looks down at the river and sees a man swimming. He tells her to join him, to jump in.

She looks to her right and sees a man standing in the spot through which she has not long walked. He urges her to go back the way she came.

She looks to her left and sees a man standing there at the other end of the bridge, on the road she had been following. He says nothing. He just smiles at her warmly, leaving her to make her own choice.

She sees the appeal of jumping in. She knows what lies under the water. She knows it will be relief.

She sees the appeal of going back. She knows back there lies blissful ignorance. She knows it will be happiness.

She sees the appeal of following the road. She knows it is a challenging but loving path. She knows it will be uncertain.

But she cannot choose. Each option is to join someone she loves. She is rooted to the spot.

She steps back when the river starts to glow red, and she sees flames rising to the surface, defying every law of the natural world as the bright flames burst into the open air, leaving the man untouched in the middle. She looks left and sees a wall of fire between her and her future. She looks right to see an identical wall separating her from her past. She feels heat at her back and knows she is trapped.

She screams for help but none arrives; she doesn't expect anybody to hear her. Consumed in the fire she gives in, all choice and love taken from her.

A mouth touched her jaw, and it was that which woke her up from her dreams of Mississippi, the Tallahatchie River and fire. Serena cursed herself for reminiscing about Mason, knowing that she never would have dreamt of the river or the bridge had she not thought of him tonight. She loved him still, and that terrified her, but it didn't detract from how much she loved Ric, and that terrified her even more. She had never known this capacity in herself until now.

"It's OK," she heard Ric whisper. She didn't bother to sit up, knowing Ric had seen this before. She turned her head and saw through the darkness she saw his concerned face and the light in his eyes. His fingers moved across her jaw and into her hair, tender but assured. She reached out to him, never really doubting he was there for her when she needed somebody.

"Did I wake you?" she whispered.

"Yes," he admitted. "But it's just as well you did."

"Sorry." She hated this. She hated that she was always plagued with nightmares now; she hadn't had it like this since her pregnancy with Eleanor, and she had forgotten how exhausting and horrific it could be. Serena felt around for Ric, her hand quickly finding his leg. "What time is it?"

"Ten past two," he answered her. "Don't worry, Serena. They're only nightmares. Nothing can actually happen to you."

She bit her lip and tried not to let him know what it meant to her that he was taking some time to try and make her feel a bit better. "I know that," she snapped. "I'm not a child. I know the difference between dreams and reality!"

"Did I suggest otherwise?"

She could feel his fingers in her hair still, and though she did not have the ability to admit it, she took it as a comfort even though she tried to keep him out of her sometimes troubled mind. In that moment she did her best not to love him. Not that it worked. If it had worked, the path ahead would have been simple and lonely, not complex and shared. The road was long, even if she was already halfway down it, and she could never see beyond the next step forward. All she knew was that she couldn't take any steps backwards, because behind her lay madness, grief and pain.

Thinking about that dream, it had been terrifying. Caught between the living, the dead and the sinking, she had found she loved all three for entirely different reasons and in completely different ways. For a moment her resolve had wavered, and in her dream it had cost her her life.

She didn't realise until now how tight her grip on Ric's leg was; she could feel faint indentations where her nails must have dug into his skin while she had struggled with herself. Her back still to him, she let her fingers trace over the damage she had done. Damage was something she seemed very good at causing these days. It was never ending, really. She felt his hand move from her hair to her arm.

"Serena, listen to me. I'm not saying you don't know the difference. All I'm saying is that you're always panicked when you wake up from it and maybe, just maybe, I was trying to calm you down a little bit."

She turned around to face him, knowing she had been wrong to snap at him. He wasn't to know how it set her teeth on edge, how it made her think the world might collapse around her if she wasn't always strong and always, unfailingly, defended by only herself. How could he know what she had never tried to tell him? She knew she couldn't have it both ways, but she she wanted it. She wanted him to understand but she also didn't want to explain the depths of her heart.

His arm around her, she kissed him gently and knew that he knew she was sorry for the way she had spoken to him. "Do you care about me?" she asked him, trying to see if he was serious.

"What kind of question do you think that is?"

"If I died, would you be upset?" she asked him.

"No."

The answer didn't surprise her, but it hurt. "If I went missing, would you look for me?"

"No."

"If I cried, would you try and stop me?"

"No," he firmly told her.

It was all she needed to know, and so she got out of bed and put her dressing gown on, preferring to walk away rather than let him see just how much that hurt. But when her hand touched the handle, she heard him speak through the darkness to her. "If you died, I wouldn't be upset – I'd be inconsolable. If you went missing, I would hunt you down and make you see you never have to run. If you cried, I would hold you tight, let you cry your heart out and tell you it's OK to be upset, because I know you like the back of my hand."

She let herself smile, because she had never been told such a thing before. She took her hand off the door handle and turned around, a lump in her throat as she tried not to let her emotions and mental exhaustion get the better of her. She was a strong woman, even if she didn't feel it at times, and that was all she wanted to be in Ric's eyes. She doubted he would have accepted her as anything less. Why should he have accepted her?

In silence she took off the dressing gown and let it fall to the floor; she got back into bed and lay next to him, trying to keep a little distance between them as she felt her heart open up and let the emotion flood out and the darkness crawl in, because she had been shut off for too long. The trigger of Ric's words had reminded her of what it was to be human and nothing more.

Human. Breakable. Fallible.

She knew she wanted to cry, just to let it out, but the years had taught her not to do it, because it always led to her feeling like she was weak. This time, though, she didn't think she had any control over it. It was one of those occasions where she could feel the intensity of what she felt wash her over, making her wonder who she was and who she pretended to be and the distance between those two women. It had to stop. She had to stop being this way; she had to stop pretending she was invincible when she wasn't fooling the people who actually looking to see what lay beneath.

But they didn't see she had lost a lover and almost lost who she was as a consequence of being twenty-one and grieving. They didn't see she had been tied down by Edward Campbell not long later, when he had met that girl, still grieving, and made her fall in what she had honestly believed to be love. They didn't see she had fallen for a man who had been a colleague and friend since she had moved here, or how it tore her apart and conflicted an already complex woman to be so confused by her own feelings.

So she let the tears fall down and reminded herself it didn't make her weak. She was human. But despite that she tried to keep it from Ric; she kept her back from him and she tried to keep her breathing even, but she failed at that. When she sniffed, it seemed to echo through the room just to spite her and her determination to appear to be something she was not.

She felt a hand on her arm as she was slowly turned over onto her other side so she was facing him. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm not," she lied, but she could hear herself that he voice was thick with her tears.

"Don't lie. I know you are."

With caution and apprehension she reached out, her hand falling onto his side, her arm snaking around his waist when he did not push her away. "I just...I didn't expect you to say what you did. It's just years of being...well, years of being me. It's caught up with me."

"Come here," she heard him say. She let him pull her into him, chest to chest, and she smiled slightly through her tears. "Of all the things to make you cry," he sighed, his mouth against her forehead. She laughed gently and let her face fall against his neck, her eyes closing as she tried to reign in her emotions before they well and truly wreaked havoc upon her and anything she could ever conceive to be a decent relationship. She learned the hard way that emotions were destruction waiting to happen if other people saw them for what they were.

She wanted to know why he stuck at her side when she tried to keep a distance. She'd never known anyone to want to endure her company when she was like this. Not since she was young. Edward had always run away when she had showed him her heart. Mason had always loved her the best he could, and she hadn't had that since she was at university. Now Ric was doing the same, and she had let herself forget what it was to be loved.

"It's OK," Ric assured her. "It's OK to cry." He was abiding by what he had said – that he would hold her tight, let her cry her heart out and tell her it was OK. Only now as she let the tears fall onto his skin did she see it wasn't a hypothetical concept she had made him answer to. It was a promise he had made to her.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: This was meant to be up earlier but my cousins invaded the house. Yep. Stressful.**

**As usual, thanks to all who read and review!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena woke in a tight embrace, and she saw that the sun had risen already; in fact, it was fairly high in the sky, and she guessed it was about eleven. How odd. She _never_ slept in, though it seemed that she did when she was with Ric. Perhaps the feeling of security and safety she always experienced with him had something to do with it.

She stared at his peaceful face for a moment, recalling how he had enforced that she was loved. For a moment she had honestly believed that he didn't care at all, until he had gone on to explain himself. She smiled and pressed a kiss onto his lips, thankful she hadn't walked out that door. "Ric," she whispered to him. "R-i-c," she said, allowing her voice to become a sort of sing-song. He groaned and stirred, his grip around her subconsciously tightening. Clearly he wasn't keen on the idea of getting out of bed.

She sighed and let her head hit the pillow again. She could have lay here forever in simplistic comfort, but the world moved too fast to allow her that bliss. She could feel his arm under the curve of her waist, his other draped over her hip as her hugged her close to him. To know that she had even allowed this unnerved her a little, though she did have the excuse that their actions were uncontrolled while they slept.

She smiled and moved her hand from his back, feeling the warmth of his skin against her. "Oi!" she shouted with a grin. "Wake up!"

He woke with a start and fell backwards, grabbing onto her arms for support; all he actually did was pull her to the floor with him. "Are you OK?" she asked him, trying not to laugh at the dazed look on his face as she lay across him.

"I'll live," he smirked. "What's the rush?" Serena glanced up at the clock and found she had been right – it was now twenty past eleven.

"It's late and I, unlike some, actually have things I need to do. Though I will have to borrow your car."

"You are _not_ driving my car," he asserted to her.

Serena raised an eyebrow at him. "My driving is no worse than yours!" she argued.

"I wasn't drinking last night."

"I barely got time to drink last night," she reminded him, knowing the night had ended very early when Ric had taken it upon himself to kiss her, and then she had gone and let it freak her out. "I'm driving."

"You're not," he insisted. "Why do you think your car needs a handbrake cable, Serena?"

"Actually, I do know why that is. I let Edward drive it before Christmas and he ripped the handbrake up time and time again, no matter how many times I asked him not to," she explained, unable to keep the ice out of her voice at the mention of Edward. "It never felt right after that."

She climbed off him and stood up, not wanting to talk about that. Edward was a monster that every so often invaded her thoughts, putting out the light and leaving her in its absence. She wandered through to the bathroom, undressed and stepped into the shower, trying not to let Edward creep in again. He didn't even have to be here to make her life difficult; the memory of their relationship was enough to haunt her, enough to caution her against loving another human being. Humanity was flawed, and being flawed all too often ended in heartbreak.

She knew she had let Ric see too much through the night. He had seen her cry – really cry – and that was something she had never wanted him to see. He had to see her as something she wasn't if this were to work. He had to see she was perfectly invincible from now on, even though she was far from it.

She let the hot water wash her over, trickling over her face, and she felt exonerated as it washed her free of her weakness. It seemed to rinse away the tears she had cried, and when she got out and wrapped herself in a towel, she felt like she could pretend she was something she wasn't once more. When she stepped out of the bathroom, she said to Ric, "I've left the shower running but you'll need to go to your place to get fresh clothes. There's a spare toothbrush in there too."

He got up and lifted a towel off the dresser, heading to the bathroom. She wondered as she made her way to her chest of drawers whether she had iced him out once too often, or if he could see past it and understand it wasn't his fault.

She tried to find something to wear but everything she pulled out, she picked a fault with and folded it back up. This insecurity was something she hated, because she knew Ric could see it no matter how much she tried to disguise it. This continued for ten minutes as she tried and failed to get dressed, still covered only by a towel.

She jumped slightly when the bathroom door opened; when she looked around she saw Ric with a towel around his waist. She smiled at how well built he was, how attracted to him she really was. She looked away, staring straight ahead as she sat down on the bed, trying not to let him see that she was not as confident as she would have liked to be. "Serena?" he asked her carefully.

"Why is it I'm never satisfied with what I am?" she demanded to know. She felt him sit down next to her. His hand traced up her arm and across her collarbone, his fingers touching her neck and her face, her skin still damp.

"You are beautiful," he informed her gently.

She let out a sarcastic laugh. "No make up, wet hair and red eyes. I'm sure I'm very attractive."

He smiled slightly and leaned in, pressing his lips against hers, somehow making her smile even though she was plagued with fear and doubt. His hand ended up entangled in her hair, the heat and passion between them something more than she'd ever expected. Allowing her hands to reach up for his face, she tried to control the situation, because she was terrified of its possible consequences. What she felt for Ric already scared her to death; she didn't need that love for him to intensify any further.

She was almost relieved when he pulled away and said, "You're freezing." She smiled because she knew this already – his face had been roasting against her hands. Something told her she had sat too long in only a towel. He stood up and rifled through her drawers, leaving her cringing at the untidiness he left behind him. When he eventually turned around, he held out to her a pair of loose jeans and a hooded jumper. She eyed them with uncertainty, because she didn't want to look like a slob when he was used to seeing her in her smart work clothes.

Cautiously she reached out and took her clothes from him, standing up to get underwear from the top drawer. Her natural reaction was to wait for him to collect his own clothes and disappear into the bathroom, her own insecurity in her body making her unable to believe she could be what she wanted to be. She sighed and got dressed, cursing herself to keeping control over herself when she shouldn't have, and losing her control when she should have held onto it.

She hurtled down the stairs to the kitchen, in desperate need of caffeine and food. The kettle was just about boiled when she heard him enter the room. His arms wrapped around her waist and he kissed her cheek lightly, making her freeze with the coffee packet in her hand. "I'll never get used to seeing you doubt yourself," he commented lightly.

"I don't doubt myself at work. I don't doubt myself when it comes to medicine or business," she allowed. "I doubt myself as a woman. As a human being."

She didn't add that other people had done that to her, or that spending her twenties secretly grieving had broken her heart to the point she no longer trusted what it tried to tell her. She didn't let him know that they were more alike than he knew. It would have done him no good anyway. It would have only reminded him that Kathy had been kind and sweet and caring, and everything she wasn't. Serena just wasn't willing to risk reminding Ric that she was not good enough.

She made the coffee in silence and handed him a mug. "I don't need to change my clothes," he told her. "I was literally in them for about two hours yesterday, since I was in theatre all day." She nodded her head and put some bread in the toaster, taking a drink from her mug to wake her up properly.

In minutes they were sitting at the table, eating in silence. She wanted to know who she had fallen in love with, and what he saw in her, but she was afraid to ask him. There were so many things she was afraid to do and afraid to be, and it was going to be her final downfall one of these days.

"So," he said, breaking the silence. "What exactly is it you need to be doing today?"

"Shopping," she said, thinking of the almost bare fridge that even she could not possibly survive on. She saw the look on Ric's face and smiled when she realised he thought he was about to be dragged through every shop in the town. "_Food_ shopping," she clarified, seeing the relief in his face upon hearing that he was only to go to the supermarket. "If you don't want to come, you can go home and I'll get a bus or a taxi or something."

She watched his bright smile break across his face, clearly amused by something. "Serena, I am fine with going to the shop with you."

"Don't you have better things to be doing?" she sighed. "Like, I don't know, washing the floors? Got to be more interesting than the supermarket."

"Maybe," he allowed. "But there's no way it would be more interesting than going with you." She smiled at him, trying to accept that maybe there was something worth loving that he could see in her; she couldn't see it herself but she had to trust that there was something, anything, worth loving about her.

By the time they were in the car, having playfully argued until it was decided Ric was going to drive, she was left a with a lot to think about. She was left to think about the things she saw in Ric that she had loved about Mason, and the things she loved about Ric that she had never once seen in Edward: patience, honesty, realistic optimism, loyalty and a capacity to love with no reservations.

After so many years of blocking Mason out of her memory, to remember him now hurt, but the knowledge she had loved him enough to hurt over his death almost made that pain a good feeling. It made no sense but she could feel the good and the bad fighting it out in her heart, making her question everything she'd known for most of her life.

Nobody knew it but she had been grieving every day for the past twenty-seven years, and the things she had once known in Mason were the things she loved most about Ric; what if this wasn't right? What if she loved Ric because she had loved a man who had been just like him? Or did that even matter?

She looked around at Ric as he drove through the town centre, trying to work her own feelings out. Watching him, she saw he was kind and loving, and that his personality being so akin to Mason's may not have had anything to do with why she had fallen for him. After all, Mason hadn't been in her mind when she went to Cambridge, or when she had first shown up here, or when she had fought tooth and nail to rid the hospital of Imelda Cousins and save Ric's career as a surgeon. All she had thought about was Ric, and all the little things that endeared him into her heart.

So maybe he was like Mason. But she loved Ric because he was Ric, not Mason. She loved the man. Did it really matter what lay beneath?

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: This was meant to be uploaded before but BT accidentally severed the lines to the house - cretins - so we had no WiFi. The joys. Thanks, as always, to everyone reading and reviewing.**

**Sarah x**

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On the way home from the shop, Serena found herself increasingly agitated with herself and what she could remember and what she could not. "Have you ever tried to fix something, _someone_, that's been broken?" she asked of Ric quietly, opening her bottle of water and taking a sip.

"We do that every day," came his placid answer. A good point, but she hadn't meant in the sense of a doctor fixing a patient. She had meant it in the sense of a person when they had taken all the blows they could, until they left themselves with no part if them that had never been battered and bruised.

"Broken," she murmured gently, letting the word circle around her mind with no end. "That's a lot of scope for one word." She huffed a little and looked out the window as Ric drove, wondering what on Earth she was meant to be doing. "I don't think you can ever really be fixed once you're broken," she sadly mused.

Only now did she realise that maybe that rule applied to her; all these years she had always thought she'd recovered and all the while she'd just been battering it down so she couldn't feel it. All these years she had thought she had stopped grieving and only this morning, when Mason Hunter had returned to her in her dreams for the first time in years, did she understand she would never get over his death. She would live, but she would always grieve for Mason, because he had been her everything. He could no longer be that, and there were other people who had taken her love, but he still held a large piece of her heart even now.

She felt him staring at her but she resisted the urge to return his gaze. "Where's all this come from, Serena?"

She shrugged her shoulders, unwilling to reveal the reason: the contents of that nightmare this morning. It was unlike any other, not one that recurred. In the river Edward had been a drowning man. On the broken road behind her had been a loving Mason. Ahead of her had been Ric, keeping silent the whole time. She didn't want to tell this to Ric in case he doubted her sanity, and probably quite rightly so. He was a patient man, but she didn't think he was patient enough to hear her out about everything that had happened to her.

She didn't want to remind him of what happened to Kathy either; it would only have hurt him. Though Mason had died in entirely different circumstances, it had been just as unexpected. The shock had been numbing.

"I'm not sure I much like that look on your face," he admitted, and it made her look around. "You look on the verge of breaking down in tears."

"I already did that earlier," she reminded him bitterly.

The fact he noticed how she felt reminded her that this was Ric she was talking to. There were so many things he saw that other people failed to. "Well, I think there was something different about that dream today. You were screaming someone's name," he explained. "Mason, I think."

Sheepishly she looked back out of the passenger side window, wondering how little she would have got away with saying. She knew she had already said too much, but there was a part of her that wanted to share this with him, and another part of her wanted to lock it away and throw away the key. She knew that she was trying to defend herself, but she couldn't see it working very well. It could only be a disaster. What else could spilling twenty-seven years of grief result in? He was under no obligation to understand or even care. Why would he? It wasn't his doing.

"Who is he?" Ric asked her. She said nothing in the knowledge that there was nothing he could say or do to take away the pain that still lingered within her; it was the very reason she hadn't tried to make him feel better when Kathy died, because she had known herself that she couldn't take the heartache away from him, no matter how much she wanted to. "What did you mean when you said that once a person is broken, you can't really fix them?

Serena sighed, trying to put into words what she was thinking, but she did not feel her usual articulate self. She felt lost in what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it; her view of the world had become cynical over the years, because she had been hurt in too many different ways.

"You can fix something all you want but even if it seems healed for the rest of the world," she explained, "you'll never be the same because _you_ know it was broken."  
Serena felt the car stop and she realised he had pulled over. "Serena, you're worrying me now," he cautioned her as he cut the engine. "Why are you talking like that?"

She looked out the window and stared at nothing and everything, and again she swallowed her emotions and silently shrugged. She wished she had never spoken in the first place. She had let him see that there were cracks within her, and pretty massive ones at that. "It's nothing," she replied, forcing her voice flat and dead. "It doesn't mean anything. Just a thought."

His fingers were on the back of her hand, touching lightly but assuringly. "What was broken?" he asked of her. "What's broken?"

Her deflection was to tell him, "Don't worry. Just musing about the state of the world." She turned to him and forced a smile to her lips. "Come on. Just take me home before this stuff all defrosts," she ordered him, trying to sound cheerful and upbeat. After all, who was she to burden him? She knew he had been through enough without hearing about all her issues too. What was she to him?

"You keep saying all these odd things and I can't make head nor tails of what you're trying to tell me," Ric admitted. She hadn't really been trying to say anything – she had only been thinking aloud about the state of her and her heart.

She looked over his face, trying to find her way out of this. She should have said nothing at all. "It didn't mean anything. I'm not trying to tell you anything." She stared at his hand resting on hers, and it hit her that he _wanted_ to know. He wanted to know her – all of her. "Don't worry about it but thank you for caring."

He smiled and shook his head gently. Obviously amused by her he turned the engine on again and squeezed her hand before he set off towards her home. How many times had she thought about telling Edward about Mason and immediately backed out of it? It had done her no good to keep it secret, but Edward had not been easy to talk to; he had always needed her to hold him up. Perhaps some part of her had loved to save him, but when she had realised she could never have saved that man, it had hit her hard.

But Ric saw what Edward had not, what he had been unable to understand. Ric seemed to have realised something lay beneath, and something still haunted her. Was that not worth the effort on her part to say the things he wanted to know and the things she needed to say?

"I planned to marry him," she quietly said; she stared out of the passenger side window but she felt his gaze burning through her. "You asked who Mason is. I planned to marry him," she repeated, knowing he wouldn't have understood, sidetracked by her words about broken people. "He died when we were twenty-one."

"I'm sorry," Ric murmured, reaching out to squeeze her leg, his grip soft. "How did it happen?"

"He was fixing his mother's roof when we went back to Biloxi in the summer," she explained. "He fell off and died there and then."

She felt herself swallowing back the tears, recalling how she had gone from wholeness to shatteredness in the space of a few seconds. How her life had transformed in seconds never ceased to horrify her, but she knew now it wasn't her fault. She had told herself a million reasons why why she was to came but she knew in her heart it had been a sheer accident. "I went back to university in the autumn and met Edward; within a few months we were married. I think I was just trying to forget what happened to Mason."

"Oh, Serena," he sighed. "I am so sorry."

Serena looked around at him, realising too late that saying it out loud for the first time she she buried the man she had loved had caused the tears to silently spill onto her face. He turned off at her street and parked the car in her drive, cutting the engine. He took his seatbelt off and leaned over to her; he kissed her head and unclipped her seatbelt, and she smiled slightly when his hand trailed down her leg to her knee.

She grabbed his hand before he could retract it and said, "Why haven't you freaked out on me over this?"

"You loved a man and he died," Ric answered her, like it was blindingly obvious. "There's nothing for me to freak out over." She looked down at their hands, joined tightly together, and she wondered who she was with Ric. She was more level and calm with him next to her, even if she was being tormented by a ghost of a man she loved. "You've never told anyone, have you?"

"Mum knows, but that's about it," she admitted.

"One of these days, Serena Campbell, I will make some sense of you."

She leaned in and gently kissed him now that she knew he wasn't bothered that she had a past. She could see in his eyes that all that bothered him was that her past caused her pain, and she could understand now that he didn't like her being in pain. His hand touched her face and she recoiled; somehow it startled her, though she wasn't entirely sure why. His face betrayed his confusion but he said nothing. Instead he got out and started taking bags out of the boot, kicking their shoes off at the door.

Together and in silence they put the shopping away, neither willing to address her recoil.

Serena slipped out and went upstairs to her bedroom; she needed some space to understand why she had backed off Ric when he was trying to be tender and loving. She had never done that before, with anyone. Was it because she had opened a piece of her heart she had jammed shut? Was it her reaction to speaking of a tragedy and its consequences? Was she pushing him away because she knew nothing ever lasted?

She picked up the locket that hung around the post of her bed, taking it carefully around the wooden pole. Steeling herself, she opened it up and saw Mason's youthful, bright face. Why was she doing this to herself?

"Serena?!" she heard Ric call through the house to her. "Serena!" The bedroom door opened and she heard his sigh. "There you are."

She looked up and saw him closing the door behind them; he sat next to her and put his arm around her. She allowed her head to fall onto his shoulder for a moment, revelling in his silence and his ability to know when questions were the last thing she needed. Eventually she closed the locket and put it back over the bedpost. When she turned she allowed a little smile to Ric, and she sensed his hand reaching out to her face. This time she did not flinch. Instead she moved her lips to his palm, his hand on her waist as he pulled her in.

She met his eyes and immediately moved in to kiss him with all the passion she had left. His hands soon began to wander, tracing over her neck and her collarbone as she began to feel just how powerful his body was. His hands moved from her hips under her jumper, and he pulled it over her head, separating them for only a second before her lips crashed into his again, her own soft moan scaring her half to death – after all, everything she loved ended up broken.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


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